The Japanese Lantern (8 page)

CHAPTER
V

Jason
handed her a large, clean white handkerchief that she accepted
w
ith real gratitude.

“I’m not
crying
,”
she informed him, not really seeing the difference herself, “it’s just that I was frightened. They went on and on saying exactly the same thing! D-did you see Edward?”

In the flickering light from the lantern she couldn’t see his eyes, but his face looked
stern
. , I “No,” he said sternly. “I did not see Edward.”

Jonquil didn’t like to press the point. She reached out and took her lantern back from
him
.
“Someone gave it to me,” she explained. “It’s pretty, isn't it?”

“Very,” he agreed. “If you get into the car, I’ll take you home.”

“But Edward
—
” she began to object.

“Edward can see himself home. I’m not responsible for him and if he can’t look after you better he’s due for a bit of a fright!”

Jonquil cast him a quick glance, but his face told her nothing.

“I’m s-sorry to give you so much trouble,” she said coldly.

He smiled at that.

“That sounds much
more like you,” he said with satisfaction. “Nice and polite, with a sting in its tail. Shall I put your mando in the boot, or are you going to nurse it?”

Reluctantly she handed it over to him and watched him as he stowed it carefully away.

“What were they saying?” she asked, sufficiently recovered to be curious.

“Hail! The Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonder
ful Law!”

“
Oh
!
” She didn’t like to admit that she wasn’t very much wiser. “It was beautiful anyway.

Jason gave her a slightly cynical look. “Yes, he was batting on a safe enough wicket taking you to the Oeshiki. I should imagine he
’
s pretty practised in that sort of thing. A little flattery, a pretty scene — and almost any girl. Don’t be taken in too easily, my sweet, you
’ll
find his type all over the East.”

“And was that what brought you out this evening?” she asked stiffly.

“That’s right,” he agreed.

“Then you needn’t have bothered!” she told him with a spurt of anger. “Just because you happen to have decided that I’m young and—inexperienced, it doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of choosing my own escorts. Edward was extremely charming, if you want to know! And he didn’t put a foot wrong once!”

“Meaning that you were half expecting him to?” Jason drawled maddeningly.

“No
!”

“Then how come you lost him so easily? Are you sure you weren’t running away from him?”

“So that’s what you think!” she exclaimed. “Well, it wasn’t like that at all. It was all my fault. I thought I saw Mitchi Boko in the crowd and I tried to get to her. It was
I
who lost Edward, not he who lost me.” In her anxiety to convince him she deliberately said nothing about her own feeling that he had already disappeared when she had turned to tell him that she had seen the Japanese girl.

Unexpectedly Jason appeared to be quite willing to take her word for it.

“I suppose you’d fly off the handle if I commended you for your good sense,” he commented dryly.

In spite of herself she found herself smiling. “Probably,” she admitted.

“Then I won’t,” he said disarmingly. “I’ll cry a truce for the drive home.”

Tokyo never sleeps, but the streets were as quiet as they ever were as the big car purred its way past the many eating houses and the thousands of neon lights. The hundreds of banners that decorated the streets by day were transferred at night into so many coloured lanterns, mostly in the national colours of red and white, but occasionally with vivid splashes of green or blue. It made Jonquil think of fairyland. A land filled with little lights, some carried, others waving gently to and fro in the light breeze.

Jason drove with confidence, taking the lesser known streets into his route to save time and to avoid the confusion of the late night traffic. Only once did he stop, and then it was apparently in the middle of nowhere.

“Where are we?” Jonquil asked sleepily.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She blinked at him.

“Not hungry exactly
—
”

“But you could eat something?”

She nodded, wondering that he should ask.

He smiled at her, a little mysteriously, and just at the same moment, her ears caught the sound of a flute being played in the street. A thin, wavering note that came and went, without much tune, but with fleeting promises of beauty.

“What’s that?” she asked.

But before he could answer a man trundling a barrow in front of him came round the corner, pausing every now and then to announce his progress on his tin flute.

“The soba seller,” Jason told her. “He’s early tonight, for he does most of his business when all the other eating places, are closed. Do you want some?”

“Oh, yes,” Jonquil agreed enthusiastically.

She hurried after him out of the car and watched, fascinated, as the vendor served them with two helpings of noodles, piping hot and delicious. With a smile the man presented them with their bowls and two pairs of cheap wooden chopsticks that would be broken and thrown away when they had finished. Anxiously, he showed her how to hold them in the one hand and, to her surprise, she found that it was really quite simple, providing that one was content to take minute morsels at a time, rather than a proper mouthful.

Some other people, all of them Japanese, joined them at the barrow, bowing to each other and to the two Europeans in their midst, whom they apparently accepted without any curiosity.

At first Jonquil felt rather self-conscious, sure that they would notice and be amused by her timid efforts with the chopsticks, but she soon found that they paid her no attention at all, and by the end of the little meal she found that she was quite adept with the unaccustomed tools.

“Hungry enough for a second bowl?
”
Jason
asked
.

She was tempted, not because she wanted any more to eat but because she was reluctant to go. Her indecision must have shown, for he grinned and nodded to the vendor to give them two more helpings.

“Arigato, thank you,” he murmured as he took the bowls. The soba seller bowed and, if possible,
his smile broadened.

“Dozo, dozo,” he replied. “Please, please.
”

But at last they had no further excuse for lingering and they went back to the car. It seemed no time at all after that that they drew up outside
the Buckmasters’ house.

“Here you are,” Jason smiled at her. You
’
d better get in before everyone begins to wonder where you’ve got to.”

She nodded, suddenly a little shy of saying goodnight to him.

“And don’t worry about Edward, I’ll let him know what happened to you.”

Guiltily, she realized that she had forgotten all about Edward in her pleasure in the noodle vendor. She wondered what Jason would say to him and knew that she ought to refuse his offer and telephone Edward herself to explain what had happened. She must have shown what she was thinking on her face, for his hand came down on hers and he smiled at her quite gently.

“Don’t worry so,” he told her. “I’ll put you in the
cl
ear with him.”

If she hadn’t been so sleepy she might have argued with him, but he looked so solid and reliable that she didn’t like to.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “And thank you for bringing me home.”

His eyes glinted at her.

“Think nothing of it,” he said. “I promised Janet that I’d keep an eye on you, otherwise I should have left you to your own or, more probably, Edward’s resources.”

She flushed, only too awake now and ready to argue the point.

“Go inside,” he told her, “and don’t forget to lock up.”

“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I have to put the car away and I still have a visit to make. I have my key, so you won’t be shutting me out.”

The car began to edge forward and she had the horrid feeling that she had been delaying
him.
She ran into the house without looking back and locked the door behind her with great deliberation. He was impossible! And yet it had been fun, stopping in the lantern-lit street and eating noodles with chopsticks. Impatiently, she turned away from her own thoughts, and slid off her high-heeled shoes, picking them up with one hand as she wandered down the corridor to her room.

It was difficult to say exactly what warned her that there was someone in her room, but she was hardly surprised at all when she opened the door and found the electric light switched on. Quickly she glanced round and heard a faint movement behind the screen at one end.

“Who is it?” she asked. She meant to speak quite normally, but it came out in a sudden whisper.

“It’s me—Yoshiko.” She came round the screen smiling broadly. “Oh, Jonquil, I have scared you! I am so sorry!”

Jonquil smiled back, rather weakly.

“You certainly did,” she said with feeling. “I thought everyone was in bed.”

“No.” Yoshiko shook her head. “I waited up for you. Did Edward give you a good time?”

J
onquil hesitated.

“Very good,” she said at last. “We went to some festival. It was very pretty. Someone gave me one of the lanterns.”

“The Oeshiki? Oh, you were lucky, Jonquil. It is very pretty. I wish that we in Japan were as free as you Westerners. My mother never minded, but I—I want the best of both worlds.” She sighed. “I was looking at your photographs. I do hope that you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Jonquil said warmly. “I
’
m
afraid they’re not very exciting
—
”

“They are to me. I have heard from my father. Tomorrow I must go home to Kyoto to get the house ready for him. That is why I came to your room. Do you think that
you
can persuade Jason that he must come too?” Her green eyes darkened almost to black in her anxiety.

“I shouldn’t think so
—
” Jonquil began.

“But you must!” Yoshiko pleaded. “You cannot believe how important it is to me! I am only half Japanese, and sometimes my father does not understand this. He—he is arranging a marriage for me. Very good family, you understand, but I want to be like you. I want to choose for myself. In Japan this is seldom possible. I have only seen my
fiancé
once. We went to a hotel with our families and saw each other, and then we exchanged gifts. You cannot understand how terrible this was for me. That day I was not at all Japanese! But to my father I am officially engaged. Only Jason can make him change his mind!”

She made a pathetic little motion with her hands.

“I don’t see how I can persuade Jason,” Jonquil objected, quite horrified by the story that Yoshiko had related. “Is it necessary for you to go home to Kyoto?”

“Oh, yes, I keep house for my father.”

“But if your father
—
”

“My father follows the custom here. It is I who want to be different,” she said simply. “All you must do is agree with me when I suggest that you and Alexander go home with me. He will soon follow to make sure Alexander is all right. He promised Janet to see something of the boy while she was away. Then you can live at his house, and he will come to us!”

Put like that it all sounded very simple—and Jonquil wanted to see Kyoto. She couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel more enthusiastic about the plan. Earlier, when Edward had mentioned that he was going, she had been quite envious of him. Then the pieces fell into place in her mind.
Edward was going to Kyoto tomorrow too!
Why?

“I’ll try,” she said out loud. “But I don’t see why he should pay any attention to me.”

“He will,” Yoshiko assured her. “You see. He will be glad of the excuse to come with us.”

That might be true, Jonquil thought. But she
was determined to talk the whole thing over with
Mrs. Tate
first!

When Yoshiko had gone, she slipped off her clothes and almost fell into bed, she was so tired.

It was only then that she remembered that she had left her lantern in the boot of Jason’s car.

Mrs. Tate looked smaller than ever in bed and rather disgruntled
.

“I called you three times,” she announced. Jonquil tried to look apologetic, failed entirely and smiled instead.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you do look cross!
”

“I feel cross,” Mrs. Tate told her. “And I have every right to. I’ve been waiting all morning for you to tell me about your night out yesterday. Was Edward Keeving still as charming as he was when he first rang up?”

Jonquil looked reflectively down at her hands. “He told me one or two quite interesting things,” she said quietly. “One, that his firm didn’t deal with alloys anyway; two, that you had put quite a lot of money into Jason’s firm; and three, that he’s going off to Kyoto.”

The old lady gave a little crow of satisfaction. “You have been busy
!
You must ask him why his firm doesn’t deal in alloys. I
could
tell you,
but
—
”

“Then I wish you would,” Jonquil said impatiently. “I don’t believe that Edward is one little bit interested in the alloy!” Except as a man, his words came back to haunt her.

“Oh don’t you, miss? Then you’re a great deal more stupid than I thought. Naturally Keeving Chemicals isn’t interested, but one of the small firms they’ve recently taken over in the United States is interested in nothing else! So put that in
your pipe and smoke it!”

With a confused movement, Jonquil brushed hack her hair from her forehead.

“I don’t see where that gets us,” she said.

“Well, I do,” Mrs. Tate retorted. “I play the Stock exchange myself. Naturally people would rather deal with a reputable company, but if they stole our alloy they could ruin the market for us.”

“I don’t really understand
—
” Jonquil began.

“No reason why you should,” the old lady informed her tartly. “You stick close to Edward and find out what he’s up to. Seen anything of Mitchi Boko?”

Jonquil shook her head, blushing.

“No-no,” she said doubtfully. “At least I don’t think I have.”

Mrs. Tate looked at her thoughtfully.

“My dear, you’re not a very good liar. Did you see her last night?”